Generalized DTI Fiber Tracking in Continuous Tensor Field

Chen B, Song A

Duke University, Duke University

MR-DTI provides directional information that can be used to delineate brain white matter connections non-invasively. In this study, we propose a generalized streamline tracking algorithm with high order propagation accuracy and a single termination criterion to reduce the inaccuracy introduced by user-defined and potentially biased termination criteria during tracking. The integration of the tissue property increases the sensibility to the boundaries of white matter and gray matter. The tracking results on phantom and human data demonstrated the improved tracking accuracy and agreement to the brain anatomy, respectively. The proposed technique also has the ability to integrate with the tensor field regulation techniques before tracking, along with the propagation modulation method such as tensor deflection during tracking.